An interesting reaction against fake news and conspiracy theories comes from Italy, where a new school program attempts to inoculate an entire generation against disinformation by giving them a toolbox of techniques for spotting it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/world/europe/italy-fake-news.html
The initiative is being watched as a kind of pilot project by other European countries, and by origanizations like Facebook that have a fake news problem. Facebook is helping promote the program.
Great intentions, but it will be very interesting to see how it pans out over the first year. One also wonders how such a program might come across in the US in the current political environment. Conspiracy theorists themselves are quick to label news they do not like as fake news, but would they be suspicious of a school program that attempted to teach children to verify information for themselves? "Do your own research" is a popular refrain - but is often applied backwards, meaning "watch research or propaganda videos created by others". How would those people feel when they children came home from school newly skeptical of their parent's YouTube knowledge?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/world/europe/italy-fake-news.html
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